


Diamonds For a Princess

by MirkwoodRiver



Category: Homestuck
Genre: And More Angst, Angst, F/M, Justifying Eridan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-15
Updated: 2011-05-15
Packaged: 2017-10-19 10:17:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/199763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MirkwoodRiver/pseuds/MirkwoodRiver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A princess should always have diamonds, and he made sure she got them.<br/>At least that way he was close to her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diamonds For a Princess

Diamonds, always diamonds for her, more than he could count. Rough chunks of rock at first, grey with blobs and veins of glitter running through them (she said they had potential). Then, as he gained skills and tools, he started giving her perfectly clear, smoothly polished, stones, carved painstakingly into the familiar quadrilateral shape also called a diamond…a shape which signified a certain quadrant that wasn't flushed or blackrom… oh yes, he was the master of subtlety.  
"Seally -Eridan!" she'd giggle.  "W)(at am I going to do wit)( all t)(ese pretty pebbles?"  
"keep them. put them in your crown. wwhatevver. youre a princess fef you deservve diamonds." He wasn't sure what he wanted her to do with them, or why he kept giving them to her, really. It had become habit, and carving them gave him something to do with his hands when he wasn't FLARPing or plotting genocide.  
Maybe, he thought, if he put enough emphasis on the fact that they were moirails, he'd believe it himself.  
Maybe, he thought with a trembling hope, if he presented them ardently enough, she'd look past appearances and realize that they were destined to be the greatest matesprits in the history of everything, ever.  
The thing about _Maybes_ , though, is they very rarely come true. He kept giving her diamonds, and she kept accepting them at face value. Or facet value. There's a pun for her collection, even if it wasn't strictly fish-related.

  
*

  
Once, in a horde he and Vris had plundered, he found a huge ruby, bigger than his two fists put together. He took it home and chipped away at it (rubies are easier to carve than diamonds, if you're wondering) until it was a perfect heart shape. He felt sure that this was it, he'd tell her how he really felt that night.  
`CA: fef ivve got something for you` he wrote, but when she got to his hive, it was another diamond that he gave her.

  
*

  
And then the Game started and she was taken up with that _filth_ , that _scum_ , that yellow-blooded, bipolar _freak_ , and he couldn't have given her diamonds even if he'd had time to collect them. The ruby heart, needless to say, stayed forgotten in a chest in his hive.  
Prince of Hope, the Game dubbed him, and he wanted to scream when he found out, to laugh madly and yell to the sky, "Wwhat hope?"  
He stayed in his land, in his land of anger and the shadows of angels for…how long? No one was sure the actual length of their time in the Medium, except maybe Ara, and he was hardly going to ask _her_. Fef never came to visit, not once. Neither did anyone else, though he was starving for company by the end. Then, suddenly, there he was on Skaia, fighting for his life, watching Gamz go completely berserk on the Black King…

  
*

  
So that brought some hope back.  
But only until the demon arrived.  
Before he could blink, he was hunkered down in a lab on a meteor, and the main purpose in his life seemed to be bothering these aliens, so he tried bothering them, looking for a hint of romance, even accepting Kan's crazy scheme to get him into the black with one of them.  
Which didn't really go well. The purple-blooded witch blew up his computer with her fake magic, and the green-blood seemed equally uninterested in his advances, though she expressed that sentiment less violently. White science was all well and good, but it couldn't give him love. And that ruby was back in his destroyed planet, never to be retrieved.

 

*

  
The others would have called it giving up hope, but he didn't see it that way. He just wanted to be on the winning side. Maybe, if he helped the demon it would even let him keep Fef. She'd realize she loved him once Sol was out of the picture, he knew. So he went to her, to ask her to come with him.  
Somehow, he knew she wouldn't.

  
*

  
God, it felt so good to smack the low-blood into a wall. The sight of that yellow filth incapacitated was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, short of Fef's face when she was happy.  
He looked at her, still hoping that she'd laugh and say it was all just a joke _seally, I was just clownfis)(ing around, let's go!_  
She looked back at him with nothing but hate and rage and pain and lifted her trident. All he could think, as she ran towards him, was, _I love her, I love her still, but she's going to kill me, and I can't let her do that…_

  
*

  
As it happened, he didn't let her do it. Didn't let Kan do it either. He was just getting them out of the way. It wasn't until he was on the other side of the transportalizer that he saw the two colors of blood on his shoes and realized what they meant. He almost threw up on the floor, but he was a prince for real, now, and princes were strong.

  
*

  
And there he was a few minutes or hours or days later, facing off with Vris in her silly fairy outfit and Gamz with his makeup smeared and a crazed look in his eyes. He supposed he'd have to get them out of the way too.

  
*

  
When he heard the running, he thought it was a rat. A very big rat. Or something. But then she came around the corner at full speed, and she…was definitely not a rat.  
 _It's an angel,_ he thought dazedly as she kicked Gamz so hard he flew off the precipice.  
 _No, it's a rainbow drinker,_ he amended as she smacked the glasses from Vris's face.  
 _No, it's Kan,_ he realized as she turned toward him, snatched the wand from his hand and snapped it.  
She raised her chainsaw, and he opened his mouth to apologize, defend, say something…

  
*

  
It's funny how the last few minutes slow down. He had time to notice that her skin was glowing a beautiful, clear white. The way it glittered reminded him of something he wanted desperately to remember, something that would be nice to think about while he died. But it was getting darker and darker and it hurt so bad and he could hardly see her skin now…getting harder to concentrate. He caught at a flutter of memory and clung to it with all his remaining willpower.

  
*

  
"L-looks like d-diamonds," the dying troll whispered. "one…one last diamond for m-my princess. please…tell Fef…"  
But no one was listening; they were far too preoccupied with their own affairs. And so whatever the Prince of Hope wanted to tell the Witch of Life was lost in the rattle of his last breath.

**Author's Note:**

> Welp.  
> I don't really know why I did this. I don't even like Eridan all that much.  
> ...Betcha didn't know that it took someone that long to die of bifurcation, eh?  
> I'm not sure if this is sad or silly, but it's my first work up on here so...enjoy?


End file.
